Procrastination in online exams: What data analytics can tell us?

Procrastination is an inevitable part of daily life, especially when it comes to activities that are bounded by deadlines. It has implications on performance and is known to be linked to poor personal time management. Although research related to procrastination in general behavior has been studied, assessing procrastination in the context of online learning activities is scarce. This study was set out as an exploratory investigation using advanced data analytics techniques about online exams. The dataset used for this study included 1,629 online exam records over a period of five terms in an academic institution in the southeastern United States. The online exams were provided during a weeklong timeframe where students were asked to take it based on material that they studied the previous week. The task performance time and task performance window were fixed on all records extracted. Results of this study indicates that when it comes to measuring online exams, over half (58%) of the students tend to procrastinate, while the rest (42%) do stage their work to avoid procrastination. However, those who procrastinated appear to perform significantly lower than those who stage their work. Clear trends were also observed based on whether the students work in the morning or the evening, their academic level, and gender